My First Trip to Europe - Switzerland

(6/13) We left Paris by coach for a drive to Crans Montana, Switzerland. One thing you can count on in Europe: if there's a hill near any sort of civilization, someone probably built a fortress on it at some point. In fact, as you get into the mountains, any slope of less than 45 degrees probably has a small town or farm or resort or something on it. Steeper slopes are likely to have vineyards.

Crans Montana is a ski resort town, so we were definitely there in the off season. Even so, there were plenty of people around.

 

Swiss hotels are funny about keys. For starters, you're likely to get a good old metal key that turns in a lock instead of a magnetic key card. They also expect you to leave that key at the hotel desk whenever you leave the hotel. Sounds kind of crazy from a security perspective, but I guess it works for them, and no one in the tour group reported anything missing from their room.

(6/14) Friday we traveled to Zermatt via coach and train. Zermatt is a larger ski resort town, but this one has an inclined train up to Sunnega station, where you can get a view of the Matterhorn if the weather cooperates. It didn't cooperate much, but the views are still great.

We had lunch at Bistro Gornergrat-Dorf in Zermatt, where I learned about röstis, which are kind of like hash browns with an assortment of topping options. This is some serious comfort food that I shall have to reproduce, which should be easy, since hash browns are plentiful here. We had sorbets for dessert, and sorbets here come with a little shot.

(6/15) Saturday we took our coaches into Montreux, on the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). Our first stop in Montreux was Chateau de Chillon. Afterward we looked around town a bit, saw the statue of Freddy Mercury, and had some gelato before heading back to Crans Montana for concerts.

Crans Montana was another town where everyone was very kind to us, especially the nice lady who noticed that Lavender was coughing (turns out it was walking pneumonia) and insisted on getting her tea, Vick's, and locally made cough drops. It turns out that by Unit 20 of Duolingo, you can be surprisingly functional in French.

Next day, Germany.